Interest Rate Cutting Spree Comes to an End, and Canada Home Prices up 3%

This week’s top real estate stories.

By  Jared Lindzon | 2 minute read

Every Friday, Wahi brings you the most important real estate stories from the past week. 

Pressing Pause

Much like the rest of us, the Bank of Canada has no idea what to expect from the economy anymore, and they’re giving up trying. After seven consecutive rate cuts, the Bank announced on Wednesday that it was going to hold off on any interest rate policy changes until it figures out the real impacts of tariffs on the economy, holding it at the current 2.75% for the time being. If Tariffs remain “limited in scope,” it may resume cutting in the summer, but if they cause inflation to skyrocket, rates may ultimately go up to help limit the damage.

Team Canada Gets Rejected at the Rim  

The NBA playoffs may have kicked off this week but the biggest slam dunk to get blocked at the rim was Canada’s housing market. After forecasting nothing but net,  CREA had to revise its outlook for 2025 based on President Trump’s trade wars and tariffs. “In short order we’ve gone from a slam dunk rebound year to treading water at best,” said a metaphor-mixing CREA economist after March sales slid 4.8% from February and 9.3% year-over-year, making it the slowest March since 2009. Now the agency expects 2025 sales to match last year’s, after forecasting an 8.6% increase. 

Home Prices Inch Up

Canada’s home prices may have gotten a power-up but Toronto and Vancouver’s look like they just got stomped on by Mario and Luigi. According to the RPS-Wahi House Price Index prices were up 3% nationally in March compared to 12 months prior, down from February’s 4%, despite flattening in the country’s two biggest markets. While Quebec and the Prairies saw significant price growth, Toronto prices remained on par with last March, while costs in Vancouver declined 1%. Detached home values also increased by 5% annually in March, as condos and apartments took an equally sized step in the opposite direction. 

GTHA New Condo Market Hits Generational Low 

One day Torontonians will gather their grandchildren to share stories of condo bidding wars, limitless demand and endless construction, as they point to the abandoned glass towers in the distance — at least that’s how it feels. That’s because, after being home to one of the planet’s hottest markets for new condos, just 533 changed hands in the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area in the first quarter of 2025 —  the fewest in the region in 30 years. In fact, just 215 new condos were sold in the City of Toronto, the least since 1990, when many condo dwellers weren’t yet born.

No Market for New Houses

When customers stop buying something, businesses tend to stop making it, and it’s hard to blame them, even if the thing they’re not making is our only hope of solving the housing crisis. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, housing starts dropped 3.3% in March compared to February and 12.5% in places with over 10,000 people since last year. New home construction is way up in Saskatchewan (97%) Quebec (50%) and Manitoba (37%) but way down in the country’s most populous provinces, dropping 30% in B.C. and 38% in Ontario, as well as 24% in Nova Scotia.

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